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Monday, October 23, 2017

The Amazon’s Boiling River Kills Anything That Enters

High Tech Boot Camp

An excerpt from Axios -

In a bet against college, WeWork acquires a coding bootcamp
By Steve LeVine

WeWork, the office leasing giant, has acquired the New York-based Flatiron School, a private coding academy, in a gamble on 15-week, $15,000 vocational education as opposed to far more expensive four-year college degrees. The companies did not disclose the precise value of the cash-and-stock deal. At $20 billion, WeWork is tied for the sixth most-valuable startup in the world.

Why it matters: At a time many experts and politicians are questioning the assumption that college is for everyone, the deal bets on a fashionable form of vocational education — coding — as a route to well-paying software jobs. The plans are to expand Flatiron from its single location in New York's financial district into most of WeWork's approximately 170 offices, which would further test the growing idea of bypassing college, at least in the U.S. tech world.

https://www.axios.com/in-a-bet-against-college-wework-acquires-a-coding-bootcamp-2500013575.html

McCain Indirectly Slams Draft Dodging Trump

Why Difficult Discourse Matters

An excerpt from the NY Times -

America’s Best University President
By Bret Stephens

Several years ago Robert Zimmer was asked by an audience in China why the University of Chicago was associated with so many winners of the Nobel Prize — 90 in all, counting this month’s win by the behavioral economist Richard Thaler. Zimmer, the university’s president since 2006, answered that the key was a campus culture committed to “discourse, argument and lack of deference.”

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“Our commitment to academic freedom,” he wrote, “means that we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/robert-zimmer-chicago-speech.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

Thursday, October 19, 2017

At Notre Dame, Football Goes Robotic

Your Body Is Amazing Pt. 2

Inside Take: Charley's Brown Sugar Festival | Queen Sugar | Oprah Winfre...

Another Life For Grouchy Cats

An excerpt from the AP News -

For ornery shelter cats, 2nd chance is a job chasing mice
By KRISTEN DE GROOT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Gary wasn’t used to being around people. He didn’t like being touched or even looked at. If anyone came too close, he’d lash out.

He was perfect for the job. Because at the Working Cats program, no manners is no problem.

Philadelphia’s Animal Care and Control Team established the program about four years ago to place unadoptable cats — the biters and the skittish, the swatters and the ones that won’t use a litter box — into jobs as mousers at barns or stables.

https://apnews.com/ddaf915aaf19413ebc122be3afe20c2f